Gary Sinise's only son, McCanna “Mac” Sinise, died last month after a five-and-a-half-year battle with a rare bone cancer, the veteran activist and “Forrest Gump” actor announced Tuesday on the website of its foundation.
“Like any family who experiences a loss like this, we are heartbroken and have been handling it the best we can,” the actor wrote. “As parents, it is very difficult to lose a child. “My heart goes out to everyone who has suffered a similar loss and to anyone who has lost a loved one.”
Mac Sinise was 33 when cancerous chordoma took his life on Jan. 5, his father wrote. After being diagnosed in August 2018, the same year his mother, Moira, was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer, Mac faced five spinal surgeries in less than two years, Sinise said, in addition to radiation treatments. and chemotherapy.
“Chordoma is a one-in-a-million cancer,” Gary Sinise wrote Tuesday, sharing information about the disease. “Chordoma, which originates in the spine, affects, on average, only 300 people in the U.S. per year. In 70% of cases the initial tumor can be removed and cured. But in 30% of cases, maybe 90 people a year, the cancer comes back.”
Mac, a drummer, pianist and USC Thornton School of Music graduate who sometimes filled in on drums in his father's Lt. Dan Band, had been working for the Gary Sinise Foundation since 2017. He resigned in 2020 to focus on the recovery and rehabilitation between his fourth and fifth surgeries, and in early 2023 he got to work finishing a piece of music he had started while in college, his father said.
“The cancer had paralyzed him from the chest down, but he still had limited use of his right arm and the fingers of his left hand,” Sinise wrote. “Being right-handed, he held a stylus in his right hand and could write letters and notes on his phone or iPad. He also had a small keyboard that he placed on the table of his hospital bed and that he used to work on his music.”
Mac worked with members of his father's band, as well as a college friend, composer and arranger Oliver Schnee. Since he could no longer play the drums or piano, Mac learned to play the harmonica, Sinise said, and the project grew to include more songs and more collaborators. Recording sessions took place in July at Sunset Sound in Hollywood and in November at Blackbird Studio in Nashville.
But in December, Sinise wrote: “We had to take Mac to the emergency room for what would be his last trip to the hospital. He had trouble breathing and after stabilizing him he was admitted. I stayed with him as I had many times before. For the first few days I thought this would be another trip where we would get things under control and return home. …But the days became more difficult and on January 5, with the family around her, she let herself go.”
Mac Sinise was buried on January 23.
The “Mac Sinise: Resurrection & Revival” album will be finished and available soon, the “CSI: NY” star said, including a pre-order link to his foundation's store. Per Mac's wishes, proceeds will go to the Gary Sinise Foundation, the site says. The foundation works to help “defenders, veterans, first responders, their families and those in need” in the United States, the site says.
“Over the years, I have met many families of our fallen heroes. It is heartbreaking and very difficult. “Our family’s fight against cancer lasted five and a half years and became increasingly more challenging as time went on,” Sinise wrote. “While our hearts ache for missing him, we are comforted knowing that Mac is no longer struggling and we are inspired and touched by the way he did it.
“He fought a tough battle against a cancer that has no cure, but he never stopped trying.”
